As Christ followers who love to celebrate Christmas, my family and I feel as if we are living between two extremes this Christmas season. At one end of the spectrum lies the no-holds-barred, full-on embracing of all things Christmas-related, sacred and secular all rolled together into one big yule log. Santa makes appearances at church celebrations, Christmas trees adorn the platforms, and Christians in all 50 states who campaign to "Keep the Christ in Christmas", see an antichrist conspiracy in every generic "Happy Holidays" uttered or written.
In contrast, I have heard and read several pastors all but deny the existence of Christmas in an effort to keep out the commercial influence and historically pagan origins or overtones from influencing the faithful. One pastor in particular seemed to think the portrayal of Jesus as a baby in a manger reduced Him to a caricature void of His power. For him, Bethlehem cannot be emphasized without minimizing Golgotha. Funny, yet sadly reactionary. Some evengelical churches will see Christmas come and go with nary a change in decor, song list or sermon theme. As if ignoring Christmas will somehow get it changed to the real date of.... well, there is no definitive date, right? But for some, I get the idea that celebrating the birth of Christ on an arbitrary date in March would just, well,feel better than celebrating it on the arbitrary date of December 25th. The effort to not resemble a Carnegie Hall Christmas ends up looking instead like a Kingdom Hall Xmas - kind of sad and hollow.
There you have it - two camps, each just as saved and sincere as the other. Yet one tries to deny Christmas as truly Christian at all, while the other claims the church to be the real owner and last true guardian of the holiday.
I, for one, feel a bit confused by the debate. I would aim for balance in the middle of the fray. I think the Goods are just going to keep on doing what we have always done, and that is to retain, as well as add, as many meaningful memory making traditions we can pack into one month, and enjoy and celebrate them to the fullest with as many believers and non-believers as we can get to join us. While doing so, we plan to be as careful as always to make Christ the focal point of it all and make the Greatest who ever lived be seen and glorified in every facet of the celebration possible. And yet, every year always requires an effort to not let the spirit of the world, manifested by hurriedness, greed, and materialism, encroach into the spirit of the celebration we hold dear.
Don't get me wrong. Santa gets no air-time at our house, You won't find Father Christmas, Pere Noel or Kris Kringle mixing it up with the angels here. But neither do we demonize the poor fella, his reindeer or even the often slighted "pagan" Christmas tree. In the years of practicing to walk the line between Christmas hymns and Christmas hype. I think we get a bit better at it with every passing gingerbread house decorated. But in the end, my Jesus gets a bit more honor, focus, and attention in December than any other month out of my year. And for that, I am grateful for Christmas, mistletoe and all.
One thing I am coming to appreciate more about French culture is its resistance to becoming consumer driven. At first, it drove me crazy that most stores close at noon for two or even three hours, so that ALL the employees can have a leisurely lunch - at the same time. No concept of staggered lunch hours here, no siree. If you need to run to the corner grocery to get a few staples during your lunch break, you will hear a resounding "no" to the question "Got milk?" It was a bit hard to adjust to the fact that the customer is not always right in France, nor is anyone particularly motivated to please him or her. Money does talk here, but it seems the euro speaks in considerably softer and less demanding tones than does the almighty dollar. The French are trying hard in a competetive international market to hold on to traditional ways of doing things which they consider to be more valuable than simply making more money. In other words, there is more to life than selling out to wealth and status. I kind of like it. Especially because I am seeing how a consumer driven mentality elsewhere is adversely affecting two things I like a lot - sports and church.
I have watched with dismay how the rules of the games I love have changed over the years. I am a sports purist who feels comfortably anchored in tradition, which puts me in opposition to such trends and advancements such as instant replay, college football conference realignments, designated hitters, and the 24 second clock, just to name a few. And most of these changes were for the purpose of attracting and retaining more fans and spectators by speeding up the action and creating more scoring. But my point is, if you are a true fan, you love the game - as is. There is no need to speed up the game or change its rules if you already enjoy every minute of it. The real problem lies in the sport attempting to adapt to consumer-enthusiasts who are not really true fans, but shallow dabblers who lose interest when the rules of the sport do not produce a game to suit their fickle tastes and short attention spans. Ticket and merchandise sales as well as television broadcasting rights are what fuel the evolution of sports. In our consumer-driven sociey, profit trumps purity.
Tim Tebow and his team, the Denver Broncos, are causing an uproar in the NFL because they are playing a style of football that was once played by men who earned little and sacrificed much, just for the privilege to play. And that game was played before non-televised audiences who respected the game and passed on its hallowed, timeless traditions to the next generation. Today, sports has to come in trendy, flashy packaging that produces slick highlights, inspires sound-bites and sells tickets. Yet Tebow is literally turning back the clock; a throw-back to such a distant era that he is today considered cutting edge, if not polarizing. He's standing up for traditional values and being a solid role-model instead of spending his free-time with gangsters, strippers, or drug-dealers. Where have we come as a society when we love athletes more who have DUIs and get arrested for domestic violence than someone who prays publicly and serves the poor on humanitarian trips, as long as they win and give us bragging rights around the water cooler? Yes, as a quarterback Tebow runs better than he throws, which is not typical for his position. But this only flies in the face of a game that has come to be shaped and defined by consumers who speak with their wallets and demand to see a football game that meets its quota of long bombs and exciting catches. If not, they'd rather turn the channel to something more entertaining, like cage fighting or WWF Smackdown.
Sadly, the church is not immune to the influence brought by consumerism. People have become so accustomed to being pleased and pampered as consumers and fans, that they carry this mentality into the house of God. And we see that the church and its function and purpose slowly become shaped by the parishoners rather than the parson. What a mistake. I would like to think that the church could inherit a little backbone from the French where the process is equally important to the product. I think my French friends have it right in that regard. They will not sacrifice quality and longevity of life for the sake of short-term gain. May we as believers and leaders in the greatest enterprise the world has ever known not allow oursleves to be driven by church-shoppers and congregation-hoppers. Change is good, and many times necessary. But change for the sake of pleasing participants who major on using and taking, rather than sacrificing and giving, is joining the ranks of consumer driven supermarkets and super bowl contenders. The King and His kingdom should be served by loyal subjects. And I am a purist in that regard as well.
The French driving exam process was a humbling experience for me. But now that I have my driving permit firmly in my pocket, because my hands are glued to the 10-o'clock and 2-o'clock position, I can say it is an achievement that I am fairly proud of.
The first of several steps was to apply for a grant, because the whole process costs an arm and a leg. Next I actually signed up at a local driving school. This includes having to participate in classroom sessions with varying numbers of eighteen-year-old French young people, and afterward having my pitiful score relayed to everyone after each practice test, followed by whispers and snickers. I was given a book full of every rule, regulation, historical fact regarding French drivers and their statistics, potential infraction of the driving code,and resulting fine, as well as every part of the automobile. Needless to say, my French vocabulary study list swelled to tome-like proportions. And I literally could have gone bald from pulling my hair out while trying to keep straight what is embrayage, demarrage, and embouteillage. (That's clutch, drive off and traffic jam, in case you were wondering).
Two plus months of studying my guts out resulted in me failing the first written exam. This was like an experience of a root-canal, leg-hair waxing, and my wife's favorite ab-crunch torture video all rolled into one. At the conclusion of the exam, each hopeful driving debutant must shuffle to the front like at a internment camp roll-call, to a desk where the monitor informs you of your result, with a congratulatory nod or smirk-adorned shake of the head while every eye is focused on your reaction. I then got a glimpse of what it might be like when we get up to the great-exam-room-in-the-sky, and God separates the goats from the sheepish. More studying, more trips to the driving school video room, more hair-pulling. But second time is a charm and I got the nod from Monsieur Monitor.
This then gave me the privilege to go back to the driving school again. And this time my burden to bear was: Anthony. Half swagger, half smooth, and 100% irritating, my 20-something driving instructor was the worst cross to bear yet. I was old enough to be his dad and probably had about 20 years driving experience on him. Still, he loved to question my every move and throw in there the familiar "tu" form of address. Kind of the equivalent of a college kid calling me "tiger", or "sport", as in, "Whoa, that's not how the French do things here, tiger." But what are you going to do, you can't purposely expose his side to a broadside collision. At least not and get your license. So I willed myself to the driving school, to what was mercifully only ten lessons in the car with Anthony, biting my lip, swallowing my pride and forgiving his stomping on the break pedal on his side as a reminder of who's the boss. Yes, it is a relief that he is now permanently in my blind spot, and no longer hovering in my peripheral.
I didn't have a lot of hope going into the actual driving exam, since I had talked to several French people who actually speak the language instead of some form of it like I do, and they had failed their exam. Some of them multiple times. So I tried to butter up my examiner, saying I really admired Alain Prost, the only famous F1 driver of note that I know of. (Okay, I had to Google it). I don't think he bought it. But in spite of my asking him to repeat his instructions a few times, he actually passed me. Probably to not have to see me in his car another time. But hey, I am not too proud to accept a handout.
I have now been awarded with a driving permit and the scarlet letter. For the next two years, French law requires that I post a very big red letter "A" emblazened on a circular white background on the rear of my car, to let people know I am a "learner". I prefer to think the "A" identifies me as "American". I also have to drive ten kilometers slower than the speed limit for that period. The way I figure it, from now on I will have a legitimate reason for being late.
